Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials that were recycled

Question

Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials that were recycled in the construction of ancient Greek Alexandria, so ancient Greek materials from the construction of that city were reused in subsequent centuries by Roman, Muslim, and modern builders.

Option AOption BOption COption DOption E

(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)

Solution

Sentence Analysis

Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials

that were recycled in the construction of ancient Greek Alexandria,

so ancient Greek materials from the construction of that city were reused in subsequent centuries by Roman, Muslim, and modern builders.

The sentence presents a similarity. Ancient Egyptian architectural materials were recycled in the construction of ancient Greek Alexandria. Similarly, ancient Greek materials from the construction of the same city were reused by others in subsequent centuries.

The problem with the sentence is that it seems to mix two constructions that are used to present similarity i.e. “like X, Y” (X and Y are nouns) and “Just as M, so N” (M and N are clauses). The given sentence begins with “Like”; however, the main clause begins with “so”. If “like” were to be used, we would need the clause to begin with the subject “ancient Greek materials” and not “so”.

Since “so” is used in the non-underlined part, we need to change the underlined part so that it uses “Just as” construction.

Option Analysis

(A) Incorrect. For the error described above.

(B) Incorrect. Has the same error as option A.

(C) Correct. This option uses the “Just as” construction correctly. The sentence now has the complete “Just as…so” construction.

(D) Incorrect. For the following reasons:

There is no antecedent for “they”.

This option uses active voice in the “Just as” part whereas the sentence has passive voice in the “so” part. Thus, there is a lack of parallelism.

(E) Incorrect. The use of “like” is incorrect, as explained in the sentence analysis.

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